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UC Berkeley Summer Reading 2006

UC Berkeley Summer Reading 2006
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first CenturyThomas L. FriedmanNew York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 Although the message can be boiled down into fewer pages, a future President should understand that technology has created the opportunity for anyone in the world to perform tasks that used to be limited by geography. It sounds good for the world; is it good for the U.S.? We are the leader in offshoring. Dave PattersonPardee Professor of Computer Science The Year of Magical ThinkingJoan DidionNew York: Knopf, 2005 This is a wonderful meditation on loss and grief, but also on a forty-year-long relationship between a man and a woman who spent hardly a day outside of each other's company. Charles FaulhaberProfessor, Spanish and PortugueseJames D. Life and FateVasilii Semenovich GrossmanNew York: Harper & Row, 1986, ©1985 This is the greatest Russian novel of the 20th century and one of the six or seven greatest works of fiction of the century in the Western canon. Why? G.

Aspen Ideas Festival Welcome to Aspen Ideas Festival Desktop Application | Xerox Business of Your Brain Brought to you by the minds at Xerox, Business of Your Brain® is a desktop app that analyzes your cerebral cortex (well, actually your Microsoft Outlook) to provide a snapshot of the things standing between you and your mind's ability to focus on real business. Examining your email, contacts, calendar of events and even the vocabulary you use, Business of Your Brain® highlights potential distractions including: Total time spent in meetings "Urgent" matters (that probably aren't) Long-winded emails and the people who send them Any and all mention of "Fantasy Football" Business of Your Brain® is for Microsoft Windows only (at least for now). And because your brain has enough to worry about, please rest assured that the app is strictly confidential and will not share any of your private data. With Xerox, you are ready for real business.

Become Who You Want To Be - StumbleUpon Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors. The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. “It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. “It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “He was just easy pickin’s,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it.

100 Incredible Lectures from the World’s Top Scientists | Best C Posted on Thursday June 18, 2009 by Staff Writers By Sarah Russel Unless you’re enrolled at one of the best online colleges or are an elite member of the science and engineering inner circle, you’re probably left out of most of the exciting research explored by the world’s greatest scientists. If you’re looking for even more amazing lectures, check out our updated list for 2012 with more talks from great minds. General Let the world’s top scientists explain exactly how they do their job when you listen to these lectures. Science and Engineering From materials science to the study of thermodynamics, learn more about the science of engineering here. WTC Lecture – collapse of WTC Buildings: Steven E. Biology and Medicine From drug research to evolution to writing the genetic code, watch these lectures for the latest developments in biology and medical research. Chemistry These chemistry scientists discuss the atomic theory of matter and other mind-boggling principles in the following lectures.

LectureFox Whether your goal is to earn a promotion, graduate at the top of your class, or just accelerate your life, lectures can help get you there. Our archives of lectures cover a huge range of topics and have all been handpicked and carefully designed by experienced instructors throughout the world who are dedicated to helping you take the next step toward meeting your career goals. Lifelong learns can turn their free time turn into self-improvement time. The online lectures on this list are more than lecture notes or a slideshow on a topic -- they were designed for audiences like you, with carefully sequenced themes and topics taught by veteran educators, and often with additional resources for your own independent study. The lectures are available to anybody, completely free of charge. Lecture courses are a valid and vital learning tool, and may be one of the best methods of learning available.

30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Their 30th Birthday - StumbleUpon The Web is grand. With its fame for hosting informative, easy-to-skim textual snippets and collaborative written works, people are spending more and more time reading online. Nevertheless, the Web cannot replace the authoritative transmissions from certain classic books that have delivered (or will deliver) profound ideas around the globe for generations. The 30 books listed here are of unparalleled prose, packed with wisdom capable of igniting a new understanding of the world. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse – A powerful story about the importance of life experiences as they relate to approaching an understanding of reality and attaining enlightenment.1984 by George Orwell – 1984 still holds chief significance nearly 60 years after it was written in 1949. Related True Measure of Understanding: Ignorance Generates Negativity In the absence of understanding human reaction is generally negative. August 27, 2007 In "Aspirations" 18 Great Reads That Changed My Life August 9, 2010 In "Hacks"

BalancedPolitics.org - Free Balanced, Non-Partisan Discussion of Political & Social Issues for Debate (Pros and Cons - Decision Making Politics) 10 More Common Faults in Human Thought Humans This list is a follow up to Top 10 Common Faults in Human Thought. Thanks for everyone’s comments and feedback; you have inspired this second list! It is amazing that with all these biases, people are able to actually have a rational thought every now and then. There is no end to the mistakes we make when we process information, so here are 10 more common errors to be aware of. The confirmation bias is the tendency to look for or interpret information in a way that confirms beliefs. The Availability heuristic is gauging what is more likely based on vivid memories. Illusion of Control is the tendency for individuals to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly have no influence on. Interesting Fact: when playing craps in a casino, people will throw the dice hard when they need a high number and soft when they need a low number. The Planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time needed to complete tasks. Bonus Attribute Substitution

Born to Learn ~ You are Born to Learn NationBuilder - the Community Organizing System 21 Brilliant Productivity Tools Every College Student Must Use | Get Degrees If you ask a college student about productivity, he won't have much to say. And you really can't blame him. He leads a dynamic life where academics and fun go hand in hand, with the latter becoming a more important activity most of the times. However, with the advent of internet and web 2.0, a college student now has access to so many amazing tools that he could finish up his work as well as enjoy life to the fullest without the guilt. Research and Taking Notes 1.Questia Questia is an excellent online research tool which features a huge web based library of magazines, books, journals, papers, articles and much more. Although you need to pay about $19.95 per month for its membership, you could save on books and magazines you buy if you subscribe to it. 2.Free Book Notes Free Book Notes, as the name suggests is a collection of free book notes, summaries, study guides and similar material aggregated from the internet. 3.Wikipedia 4.Notely 5.Evernote 6.Google Docs 7. 8.Noodletools Communication

GovTrack.us: Tracking the U.S. Congress Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them In the Evolution vs. Creationism debate, it is important to be able to spot all the logical fallacies that Creationists tend to throw around. This essay covers many bare essentials of logical thinking, as well as ways to critically evaluate an argument. THE STRAWMAN ATTACK: The strawman is, perhaps, the most heavily-employed tactic used by Creationists. "Evolution is a ridiculous theory! This is an example of a strawman attack. Spotting a strawman attack isn't that hard. Strawman attacks, once exposed for what they are, are not all that difficult to counter. THE FALSE DILEMMA FALLACY: The false dilemma is at the heart of the Creationist argument. "There are only two solutions for the question of how the Universe was created: the Big Bang, which says that the Universe was formed out of nothing from random chance, or Biblical Creation, which gives us a loving, awesome, caring God who wants us to... "Isaac Newton was a believer in Creation. No logic.

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